[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of The Victory Theatre Center’s Four Women in Red, written by Laura Shamas (Chickasaw Nation) and directed by Jeanette Harrison (Onondaga) from February 14 – March 23.
What could be more terrifying than losing someone? Never having closure. Never knowing what happened to them, whether they are alive or dead. Imagine living with this for years and years and years. This is what many Indigenous families live through and have done for decades now. Facing little to no interest from local authorities, with the excuse that the sheriff’s department has no jurisdiction and no money, and no incentive to help.
Missing Indigenous women is an exploding epidemic. This beautiful and moving new play, Four Women in Red, shines a spotlight on what so many women face every day.
For it is always the women that fight this. Always the women in our society who come together, stir things up, make much-needed noise and struggle with a world that seems not to care.
The play follows the stories of four such women. Each month, they gather in the sheriff’s office for their monthly updates on their missing daughters, girlfriends, nieces and sisters. They sit silently dreading being called into a room to be told what most think is inevitable. But still, they come.
It’s a fierce and unrelenting look at loss. As the women get to know each other through their shared pain and frustration, they come together to help the latest missing girl. The one with the highest probability of being found. They search the last place she was seen, they raise money for posters and flyers, they create a TV spot at a local public station. They start a podcast. They do everything they can think of to keep pressure on the local sheriffs to keep looking. It’s well known by now that most of these disappearances are close to fracking sights. The men who work on the oil fields live on site and frequent the local bars. Thousands of women have disappeared. Murdered, trafficked, vanished, but the money from the companies that squeeze the oil from the earth is powerful and buys a lot of silence.
Congressional hearings were held last month and the hope is that this will expose the horrible situation. This powerful and brilliantly acted play, Four Women in Red, written by Laura Shamas (Chickasaw Nation) and directed by Jeanette Harrison (Onondaga) is a vivid reminder of these losses. It takes us into the heart of their world and the struggles they all have to find any kind of peace for their loved ones.
I was so moved by this play and these truly wonderful actresses with their heartbreakingly authentic portrayals of life in chaos. Maria Gobetti of The Victory Theatre Centre proudly supports this work, first developed by Native Voices, the only Actors’ Equity theatre company in the country dedicated to developing and producing new plays by Native artists.
It’s so important to raise awareness of this ongoing nightmare and to pose the question to us all, “What if it was your child?”
I was absolutely blown away by this remarkable play. We need art to work for us directly sometimes. This is a powerful and brilliantly written portrait of women who find strength in each other to fight together for justice. It is so worthy of your time…go and see Four Women in Red. Bravo!!!
Tickets:
https://thevictorytheatrecenter.org/
Where:
The Victory Theatre Center
3326 W Victory Blvd, Burbank, CA 91505
When:
February 14-March 23
Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m | Sundays at 4 p.m.
Four Women in Red Cast
Carolyn Dunn (Tunica-Choctaw/Biloxi, Mvskoke), Harriette Feliz (Chumash), Zoey Reyes (Diné and Chicana) and Jehnean Washington (Yuchi, Seminole and Shoshone).
The Team
The creative team for Four Women in Red includes costume designer Lorna Bowen (Muscogee Creek Nation, Seminole and Cherokee); lighting designer Grayson Basina (Ojibwe); production designer Evan Bartoletti; sound designer Jose Medrano Velazquez; graphic designer Nipinet Landsem (Ojibwe and Michif, descendant of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and a citizen of the Manitoba Métis Federation); dramaturg Gail Bryson; and photographer Tim Sullens. The associate producer is Lisa Lokelani Lechuga and the stage manager is Ngan Ho-Lemoine. Maria Gobetti and Evan Bartoletti produce.
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